 Hello, I'm Daniel Connell and I'm interviewing Professor Asit Biswas, who is the Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School for Public Policy in Singapore. But that's only just the beginning of Professor Biswas's CV. I mean, it's an extraordinary CV stretching over many decades of public service, particularly in the water sector. But one of the outstanding features is that he's been involved in a wide range of different activities outside of universities. This includes international organisations, United Nations, etc., but also many newspapers and broadcasting organisations. What we're going to talk about today is the role of universities. And I'd just like to start off, Professor, by asking you, as a basic starting question, what role do you think universities should play in the public life of their respective countries? In my view, universities have two important roles. One is to teach and train the next generation of young people for a rapidly changing conditions. And that's going to be, that is a difficult task by itself. And the second one in terms of knowledge. And by knowledge, I mean knowledge generation, knowledge synthesis, and what is more important is knowledge application. The universities in my view have been quite good in knowledge generation, not so good in knowledge synthesis, very poor in knowledge application. And that is where I'm coming from. I'm trying to push the universities and academia. I strongly believe in Confucius. And he said, the essence of knowledge is having it to apply it. And that part is missing. There's a complete disconnect in the universities between generation of knowledge and then application of knowledge. There are two areas that you were pointing to that I was particularly noting. One of them was the educational role. And the other was the role of the academic in the public, in the public sphere. They're obviously connections. But just to talk for the moment about education, which is obviously a very major core activity. How do you feel about the way in which students, the way in which universities educate the students that come through them? The most sad part is, I do not know a single university anywhere in the world. Of course, I have not studied any of them. Maybe you are doing it. We have no idea what the students themselves feel. Say, five years after graduation, whether they got value for money for their education, the way we taught them or what we trained them for the future, whether it's any good to them, what we taught them, are they of any use to them? And also equally important for going to their employers, asking, how effective did you find our students to do the tasks you wanted them to do? And that I have not seen a single university that has collected that information. And that is one of the main problem I have, because many of the students I talk to, and these are anecdotal information, they say that what they learned in the university are of very limited value to them. In many countries, especially in India, I've been advising five CEOs of the largest corporations. And they're basically telling me in India right now, all the graduates they're getting, even from the best institutions, they are not very useful. They have to train them for at least two years before they can be useful. So we have to ask how well our students are being trained for the future. And even the bigger problem is, while in the past what we taught them could be relevant for almost half their life or three-quarter of their life, the knowledge is advancing so fast, technology is changing so fast that it's going to be more and more difficult to train the students to tackle the problem more than five to ten years after their graduation. Ten years after their graduation I'm convinced, let's say by 2026, the world will be a very different place. We have no idea what that place will be and what type of knowledge they will need, what type of training they would need to meet the future world of that. And the universities we are actually looking at the future, most universities we are looking to the future, to the rear view mirror. This is what we have been doing in the past, this is what we're doing in the future. We are just going incrementally and the world will not change, the world of education will not change incrementally. It will change exponentially. And so we have to start thinking about how relevant is the knowledge and the education and the training we're giving to students to meet the future needs of the society. The way you're describing the issue it seems to me that you're suggesting that skills and philosophy and approaches to life and approaches to complexity should be at the core of the educational training, educational process rather than specifically content. Yes, that is very true. In my view the best thing we can do with our students no matter which discipline they are is how to think logically. In many universities we are teaching students what I call solution in search of a problem. We give them a solution, then looking for a problem to which they apply the solution. More and more we have to start, we have to teach to the students that solutions have a geographical context also a time context. What works in one part of Australia may not work in the other part of Australia or for certain what works in Australia will not work in India for a variety of reasons and vice versa. It may be very successful here but it won't be there. So we have a time and a space constant but universities we don't teach them. We're saying this solution is almost universal and those are some of the frustrations I'm having with the universities these days to show that we are not teaching our students to think independently, logically. So how do you teach a student to teach independently and when I ask that I'm just thinking of a definition of education that I particularly like and that is that the role of the teacher is to create the circumstance within which students teach themselves. If you can do that that would be great but what happens is most of the time we have a predetermined idea what the students must learn. So that is the wrong approach. In the area where I specialize much of my life in the field of water, in the area of water it's not a rocket science. If you want to solve the world's water problems it would take an intelligent person four to five months to figure out what are the problems, what are the potential solutions. So basically you have to start wherever you are because water is a local problem. So you'll start with the local context, local boundary conditions, local conditions, local institutions and then proceed to the next steps. These are the problems, these are the type of solutions we're going to get. We would like to get how do you go from point A to point B and a predetermined route will most certainly take you to the wrong solutions and in my view in the future we need to start teaching our students how to go from point A to point B. So getting students out of the classroom, getting them to confront serious case studies, getting them to ask you know what's a useful question in relation to this specific place and what's a sensible response to that question. And also teach our students that if you're going to solve the water problem you need to go to the field, you go, you got to see what are the conditions. You cannot sit down with your computer, your desktop, your laptop or whatever it is and simulate what are going to be the conditions and what are going to be solutions. One of the biggest problem I'm finding now in the water field and many other field students have no concept of the reality. They very seldom go to the field, very seldom spend much time learning what water the conditions, very seldom check what are the institutions who are supposed to take those solutions and apply it. You may have the best solution but if you don't understand the institutions the potential of using that solution within the, implementing that solution within the institutional constraints is very limited. So we have to learn a whole variety of things if you're looking for solutions, not only the technical part but also social, institutional and political part. And I think you're suggesting the role of teacher as being facilitator and provocateur perhaps and critic and support as well within this environment and not the dominant godlike authority. Absolutely true and not only that we have to encourage our students to think independently because things are changing so fast we really don't know what's happening. You see from one of the things I see now the paradigm of research in the world has changed yet we don't, most of us at the universities don't realize the paradigm has changed and the paradigm has changed for very simple reason. Before 20, 30 years ago for decades or centuries research used to be done in the academia, research institutions and our incentive structure in the academia is when you do the research you publish as much as possible. Our career depends how many papers we churn out so we have an incentive to publish whatever we are doing, whatever the results we are getting. Now we're seeing a completely different paradigm in any field and the different paradigm is the amount of money the private sector is putting in the R&D field. If you look at some of the major multinational companies who I advise as strategic advisor they're spending two to six billion dollars a year for R&D in their limited area where the company works. Only thing we know for example that next year their R&D budget will be higher. Not like many countries like the US, I don't know about Australia, the R&D budget is being squeezed and many cases in Europe as well it being reduced. This private sector is increasing. If you look at a large group like Tata in India, Conglomerate, their R&D budget over the last four years has increased by roughly one third to roughly about three and a half to four billion dollars. There's not a single university anywhere I know who even has a R&D budget of two billion or a billion dollars in all the fields. On top of that in the 50 years I've been at the universities or closely associated with the universities. I never had a research project which was more than three years in duration. In contrast the private sector is willing to invest for 15 to 20 years as long as the researchers are making progress. Now the difference I see now is the following whereas the public sector like the universities had the professors have an incentive to publish, private sector is completely different. They're spending millions and hundreds of millions of dollars for R&D but they don't want anyone to know what's happening for obvious reasons. They don't want to know even what they're working on. Now four or five major multinational companies I'm now acting as the advisor to the CEO, strategic advisor to CEO or chairman of the board. My contract says very clearly I can't even discuss what they're working on. Forget the results I can't even discuss what they're working on. Now if I look at my field of water I'm privy to many information which makes me feel reasonably optimistic for the world's water future because some of the developments I'm convinced will come in the next 10 to 15 years but I can't talk about it. Most of the academic haven't a clue about it and this is what I'm seeing a difference in paradigm that research the private sector is now spending more money significantly more money in any specific area than the private sector and than the public sector. So given that difficult situation you've just described what should where should universities position themselves what should they do to play a creative positive role in that situation? I think the most positive role universities can play in my view is the complete disconnect that now exists between the results the results of the research the universities are doing to who could benefit from that research. So now our job is finished as soon as I publish might mean task as a university if I purely look at from a university professor's viewpoint my main task is completed as soon as I publish that in a high impact journal. Now the fact is in the real world very few people read high impact journal. If I look in the water field the highest impact factor journal in the water area has six subscribers in India 13 subscribers in China so 19 subscription for 2.6 billion people and this is the highest impact the highest impact factor in the water in the water sector water sector the academic sector in the academic sector it's the dream of every water scientist to publish in the highest impact factor because our career takes off if I can have a half a dozen paper in a high impact factor my career takes off. I asked since I advise the countries I asked the Indian minister of water and the Chinese minister of water the firm the secretary of the vice minister have you have you ever read this particular journal not only they haven't read it they've never heard of it there's staff never heard of it either so the question comes the incentive structure of the university is such is that we need to publish it in high impact journal for us to go up the ladder but nobody reads that journal no our estimate we have done some back of the envelope calculation our estimate is an average scientific paper is now read by no more than 10 10 persons including the author and yet the number of journals are expanding because now the business model of journals has changed every year new journals are coming last year alone no 2014 I don't have the figures for 2015 last year alone we estimate 2.5 million articles were published in social sciences more than 80 percent of the papers never get a citation and yet we are all hung up in the academia on publication and citation it really doesn't matter we don't get any kudos if I spend time whatever I did getting the results to the people who matter in the language they understand and that disconnect is creating a problem so why the question I ask myself why are you doing research if it does not improve the quality of life of the people the people are paying for the universities through the taxes or donations or fees what it is coming from that and yet we are not giving the most important part from research to application much any kudos or any emphasis and so the question that comes why are why have why are the universities are not giving them enough attention so that people can see what we are doing improves their life the politicians can see that's not happening and what should they be doing what are the options to achieve the the options are first you have to take whatever we have to take whatever we are doing to the attention of the public because in the public discourse academics and most academics are noticeably absent second we have to bring whatever the solutions we have to the attention of people who might be able to use it now what is happening these days is people have no time their time is becoming precious the senior bureaucrats senior ministers they're becoming precious academics also in general do not have good contacts or access to the policy makers by access means if you if you're really going to have translate or inform policy makers you must have direct access to that person or he's or her closest advisors to whom they listen there's no kudos in academia to develop those contact and if you don't have those contact things don't go the second part is we are not contributing to the public discourse public pays for everything but we are notably absent from the discourse and the public in order to reach the public the scientific papers books are irrelevant the average print run of the books of now is 250 copies in the world it's coming down progressively so how do we make this this transition and one way i found out this if you want to compete to the transition from research to public domain the policy domain is in addition to the access to the policy makers is going through the media media is extremely powerful if i write a scientific paper in the in nature science or lancet with impact factor of 30 plus only scientist few scientists will read it we preach to the converted if you write if we write a paper in opinion piece in a media or in a blog it needs a completely different type of writing it has to be very brief because nobody these days have time to read long pieces so it has to be between six if you're lucky 1000 words in general about six to 800 words you have to win that in a very simple language you have to find out what you have done what are the benefits and the need the competition's first phase in the media is so tough these days about 98 percent of unsolicited material never sees the light of the day so you have to develop contacts with the editors as well in order to get those opinion pieces published and the interesting thing i find is i have written now about 80 plus books all together they've been translated into 37 languages never in my life 50 years of working have i got a letter from a minister saying i read a book or this or some 700 papers i have written that i read your paper and it's good or it's bad or i disagree with it if i write an opinion piece in a newspaper most of the time i get at least one letter if not many from a minister or a permanent secretary or a senior bureaucrat saying you know i liked what what what you have written if i'm in town can you have a lunch or dinner so that we can discuss it more or can you have a Skype conversation where you can explain to it more so if you are going to reach the people who should be using it the traditional way of books and scientific publications doesn't get us anywhere so we have to change our way of putting our ideas across differently and one of the things i'm impressed with ANU and ANU is doing much better than any other university i know is the blogs you're publishing from policy forum to ecstacia forum and a few others you're publishing those are i think could be one of your one of your important avenues to get the views of your staff to the world at at large do you think it's also appropriate for academics to take on controversies i mean inherently policy questions tend to be about unsolved issues in which there are contending competing views uh there is no question if you're going to use your views in the real life there will be pluses and minuses we have to decide what is the role of an academic if the role of an academic is doing research publishing high impact journal not bother about whether it is used whether there's discussion of those then that's fine but i for one believe that research has to be useful it should benefit the humankind and if you follow that there's no other choice but to get involved in controversies no matter what policy you advocate the there will be beneficiaries and there will be people who pay the cost you see now one of the things we heard about the brexit now donald trump became the president we are talking about the advantages of globalization but no one looked at who are the beneficiaries of globalization who who paid the cost of globalization so in the policy arena we have no choice we have to get involved in the controversies we have to if we have to stick our neck out sometimes your neck may get chopped uh you sometimes the university administration may not even support you because it's controversial and they say that person is speaking on his own or her own uh it's not the university's view i think the universities need to take a more proactive approach saying our professors they're free to publish free to discuss anything within of course some some limits i don't want to see professors going into racial hatred a whole variety of other things but purely on the work they're doing and getting into controversies but in many countries um that sort of role of universities is not very popular i mean turkey is just one example not only turkey many others as well many other countries even in the advanced countries i know many of my friends the university administration even though the person was advocating something very good and something need to look at it was against the government policy and since universities were getting significant amount of funding from the government policy they basically allowed the professor to be hung under there's um the notion of universities as being one of the sort of bases from which you can have alternative truth to power type dialogues some people suggest that that's a rather western pluralist notion um you presumably don't accept i i don't accept that even i've been advising the government of china since 1983 when den shopping invited me to come and take a look at south north water transfer in the policy arena i never have and i go back to china i've gone back to china literally every six to twelve months since 1983 i never had any problem arguing with the chinese senior bureaucrats the vice ministers or the ministers saying some of the things they're doing i don't agree for the following reasons they accept that they accept that they will not agree with you that's fine but what i find is if you have a good opinion good views based on solid scientific idea analysis and if you have access to the policy makers and they trust you and that takes time over a short period of a few months you can move them towards the ideas you're propounding they're willing to try it out and if you can show that that actually will help them more they will benefit more because if those ideas work they will be feted in their country they will go up the ladder much quicker i have no i don't get any benefits i don't get paid for it or anything for it surprisingly they're willing to accept that but the main problem i see in the academia is we don't invest enough money to develop good enough time developing good contacts good relations good trust with the policy makers and that takes time and but there are some issues where that doesn't work where it's not enough and for example the united states has now got a president that is repudiating the science and climate change now true but then we have to ask why the most powerful country can elect a president who repudiates science did we do our homework by telling the people before water one of the recent trump was elected is globalization has taken many of the jobs from the rust belt not only globalization but also development became one of the reason why many of these jobs have disappeared is the robotics and automation etc i mean the way the cars are manufactured in the 70s where people are getting very good salary manufacturing work getting very good salaries those days are gone they're not going to come back and yet we have not got many of this information to the people saying that what president elect trump has saying that jobs will come back they're not going to come back some may come back but they most of them will not come back because those are changes that has happened for a variety of reasons by putting a border from mexico you know in the mexico or canada isolating us over the long run they will lose jobs rather than create jobs but that message has never gone obviously never gone to the rust belt who just saw that their high paying jobs have disappeared the cities and the town centers have become less affluent the middle class so-called middle class in that area that income has not increased very much over the over the years so we have a in my view the university professors have a role in communicating all these things not only the politicians not only to the politicians more importantly the public as a whole so they're saying these are the development these are the issues and we need to go this is the direction to go and if you go in these directions what benefit you will get this brings me back to where we started the interview and that was talking about the education of students the sort of values and philosophies that people to be effectively functioning as academics in the way in which you're describing um the sort of values they should be conveying through their teaching how would you describe that the way in which the an academic should should present these issues and and and try and encourage the students students to develop in my teaching I take a completely different type of approach than traditional the way I was taught I basically defined the problem saying these are the issues these are the complexities and I ask my students how you proceed so they have to do the thinking they have to do the reading and it is interesting in a short course of three months which I call water policy and governance none of my students have any water policy back water background none of them sometimes there may be one out of twenty but the end of three months by their discussions and thinking and reading they come out with a solution for their city or the town or the country and then at the beginning when I ask them you have to come out with a solution and their reaction is we are not a water we don't know anything about water one of the my requirements of my course the strict requirements at the end of the course they must have a solution to a country's cities or the region's water related issue which could be published in one of the newspapers blog of that particular town or country that's a requirement so when people come most of the students don't come to my courses these are you said they're thinking we have what we initially in in our university national university of singapore one week where the first week what is called the shopping week where all the students could come for a one-hour lecture of the different professors giving different courses and they can decide whether to stay or not and majority of them that take my course they see the challenge but an overwhelming number do not take the course because they say sir you're asking me too much but the end of three I don't know I don't know anything about the water at the end of three months I cannot produce a solution which can be published in a newspaper and the people and the people and the decision makers and the policy makers can read it it's not feasible and that those few who trust me I said you can do it that they have consistently done it and it is surprising if a person who has no background in water can in three months come out with a solution why can't we professionals do better right well I think professor I'd like to thank you very much for taking part in our discussion today and I think that's a very good note and a challenging note for us to finish on thank you thank you